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“I think we’ll be okay if we leave right now, don’t you?” Juliet peered out through the glass doors and into the stormy night. “It’s not like we’re hours away from home. And we’d just have to have Reggie drive us back here in the morning to come get our cars.”
“Yeah, that’s true. It’s a moot point anyway.” Layla said as she zipped up her jacket and put the hood up over her head. “I just remembered that Reggie dropped the minivan off to have the wheel bearings checked. He’s with the kids at his mom’s house. I’m supposed to pick them up from there.”
“We can do this.” Juliet told her, even as a loud clap of thunder shook the sky.
“You think so?” Layla peered out into the storm and sighed. “We’re gonna get wet as hell.”
“Not me, I ran track in high school. But you? I bet you run all gawky and slow...kind of like a pageant queen on crack.” Juliet teased her friend.
“You wouldn’t be challenging me to a race would you, Miss Jones?”
“A race yes, but a challenge? I don’t think so!”
“Well in that case, last one back to their car is a rotten egg!” Layla squealed with laughter as she darted first for the door.
“Cheater!” Juliet’s voice rang out merrily to Layla. But when the two friends got outside, they were hit with the force of the storm. The rain came down in freezing torrents and the gusts of wind made them catch their breath. They huddled together as they ran to their cars.
“Reggie’s mom’s house is only a couple of miles from here!” Layla shouted out over the gale force winds. “Follow me, we can all stay the night there!”
Juliet shook her head and pressed the button to unlock the car. She was standing in a puddle and her feet were already getting soaked through her canvas sneakers. Juliet just wanted to go home, dry off, and spend the night waiting out the storm with some beef stew, and the classic movie channel.
“I’ll be fine!” Juliet assured her friend, then hopped into her car.
It had only been a matter of a few minutes after Juliet hit the highway that she began to question the wisdom of trying to outrun the storm. The rain came down in long, torrential sweeps, while the howling and determined wind waged a war against Mother Nature. Branches bent and bowed dangerously close to power lines. The black night sky split with bolts of white lightening, while thunder shook the trees from their roots. Juliet leaned close into the steering wheel to get a better look at the road ahead.
Visibility was bad and getting worse. The white lines of the highway faded in and out beneath the waves of rain. When a heavy truck passed Juliet going at a speed that was nothing short of suicidal, her car got hit hard with the impact of a backsplash the size of a small tsunami. Juliet swerved hard and had barely gotten her vehicle under control when the dashboard lights began to turn on and off as if under a voodoo spell. Lightning and thunder erupted almost simultaneously as fat, full raindrops continued to bullet her car with machine gun like intensity. Juliet had bravely white knuckled it since she had left the movie theater, but when she lost the beam of a front head lamp, she had had enough. She could barely operate the vehicle with the strength of two headlights but driving with a single beam would be impossible. Juliet had just decided to pull over when she saw the entrance to the long, dirt country road that would lead her home. She sent up a silent prayer of thanks and sighed in great relief as she drove her car onto the exit.
But once she had left the lights of the highway behind, Juliet found herself surrounded by complete darkness, both on the road ahead and on the road behind her. The deep violence of the storm had swallowed up the moon and the stars in its battle for dominance. Now, as Juliet and her small car bravely forged onward, she began to lose her sense of direction. Her turn should be just ahead. She should be seeing it anytime now. A small turn to the right and Juliet should be home.
But as her vehicle swayed with the gale force winds, and Juliet bumped along a road that had all but washed away, she began to doubt her direction. After a few moments, a slow but undeniable certainty filled her, and Juliet knew exactly what road she was on.
“Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit!”Juliet swore aloud and pounded her hand against the steering wheel. In her desperate haste to get out of the storm, Juliet had taken a wrong turn.
A very, very wrong turn.
“What the hell?” P.J. watched the security monitor as he saw the light of a single headlamp come bouncing down the road towards his house. He adjusted the screen on the camera to no avail. The rain was coming down so hard that even with the special lenses that he had had installed, P.J. couldn’t make out more than the lone headlight in the long shadows.
But he knew one thing, no one came out in a storm like this, especially on a bike.Nino’s crew is up to somethingJules’s words flashed through P.J.’s mind. His eyes swiveled again to the slow approach of the lone headlight. They’d have to be crazy to come after him on a night like this. But then again, the storm had come up quickly. Nino and P.J. had a history and P.J. had been waiting a long time for Nino to make a move. Up to this point the head of the Colombian crime organization had left P.J. alone, but now things had apparently heated up. P.J. wouldn’t be at all surprised if Nino had decided to come after him for those guns. The guy on the bike that was now headed towards P.J.’s house was most probably a scout.
After a small contemplation, P.J. decided on the 9 millimeter. He loaded it, put the safety on and stuck it in the back of his waist band. Then P.J. threw on a black leather jacket and pulled a Scully hat over his head. After pushing a buck knife into his left boot, he headed out into the storm.
The wind howled like the opening of a horror movie and pushed against P.J.’s chest. Rain came down in torrents, and trees creaked out a warning as their branches bent under the weight of the storm. With freezing fingers, P.J. pulled his weapon out from the back of his waistband and moved it to the deep front pocket of his leather jacket for easy access. He had planned to use the cover of the trees to circle back around whoever had the balls to trespass on his property. But now, because of the force of the direction of the wind, he was going to have to meet the fucker head on.
Juliet’s car was stuck. And it was her own fault. When Juliet had realized that she had mistaken the road that led to P.J.’s house for the road that led to hers, she had tried to turn the vehicle around. She had successfully backed up to a horizontal position across the road, but it was when she had tried to complete the turn that the trouble started. Juliet’s wheels had spun and spun and spun. The more she had tried, the deeper she had dug the car in. Now her vehicle sat straight across the road, and bumper deep in the thick muck and mire that the storm continued to create.
Juliet jumped straight up in her seat and her chest hit the steering wheel. She let out a loud screech and shielded her face as a heavy branch fell and landed on her windshield. The entire glass panel was instantly turned into a large, glistening spider web. Thankfully, it did not crack through, but one more branch, one more deep gust of wind, and Juliet knew she’d be covered in sharp shards.
She sat and deliberated as the weather raged all around. As much as she would like to, Juliet knew that she couldn’t stay, she knew that she couldn’t wait the storm out in her car. She was afraid of that windshield breaking and afraid that the car might shift deeper into the thick mud. Juliet could barely open the door now, another couple of inches and she would be trapped inside.
She peered down the road and saw the lights of P.J.’s cabin shining out like a beacon on the hilltop. In Juliet’s current mindset, it seemed to be miles and miles away. But the rational part of her knew that it was only about a half a mile or so down the road. That’s all Juliet had to do was be fast about it. She would just have to stay focused and keep her eyes on the prize. The dim, glowing lights told her that P.J. was home, but even if he wasn’t, Juliet would find her way in. She’d break a window if she had to. As the thought ran through her mind, Juliet felt a small bit of something that felt like courage. It sparked and ignited a fire inside of her. As Juliet braced to go out into the storm, she gave herself an attagirl.
Juliet pushed open the door to the car and squeezed herself through the opening. When she did, her footing faltered and she sank immediately into knee deep, freezing, cold mud. At first Juliet was too shocked to move. It took a full minute of being bound and pummeled by raging winds before Juliet could even begin to fathom what had happened to her.
It all seemed so surreal. Juliet felt as though she had stepped into a mad wizard’s kaleidoscope where all of the colors were black. She tried hard to catch her breath as the rain beat down on her and the wind roared and whipped her face in punishing slaps. As she felt her footing continue to seep out from under her, Juliet looked around for a way to hoist herself up and out of the mud. She needed something strong and sturdy, something fixed that would not move when she did…the car. Juliet decided to try to use the car as leverage. If she could just wedge her ass onto the edge of the open door, then maybe she could push off. But when Juliet tried, she lost her balance. Her legs remained stuck when the rest of her body fell forward.
Exhausted, cold, and covered from the waist down in the icy mud, Juliet could do nothing more than watch as the world crashed and whirled around her. She tried to squelch the rising panic that was making her heart pound, and her breathing come out in short, shallow pants. Juliet took a deep, bracing breath. With determined will, she buried the overwhelming sense of doom that threatened to paralyze her.
After all she had been through, wouldn’t it just be the most ironic and bizarre thing ever if this is how Juliet met her end? If this is what brought her down? Death by mud, the thought was so absurd and the situation so dire, that for the very first time in her life, Juliet experienced complete and utter surrender. She decided to hand her destiny over to fate and give it up to that higher power that everyone was always talking up.
